My Mother – Sheila Mary Wenn Mitchell

When my mother took her last breath, my sister was asleep in a chair in my mother’s hospital room. I watched my mother struggle for each tortuous breath and her mouth, in struggling to breathe, reminded me of a fish, and when I see a fish do the same thing, it becomes an instant trigger. My sister, though asleep, myself and my father all were in my mother’s hospital room as she had her lungs pumping out a dirty brown liquid. She died from colorectal cancer which had metastasized, spreading to her stomach and lungs, I believe. When she was pronounced dead, I felt numb, shock and was speechless with no one to grieve with, except my sister. After that, I really have no recollection of what happened. The glue that held our family of five together…was now gone…permanently.

I’m 60 now and have suffered from the death of my mother for almost 30 years (next April). I have no outlet for grieving and so my grief has taken the form of emotional, mental and psychological illness. I have guilt feelings too about the way I treated my mother for looking different, for talking with a Scottish dialect despite her having been born in England (Scottish-born parents). I once went out of my way to ignore her, feeling ashamed. I have wondered, if she were alive, how we would or wouldn’t get along. Would she like the man I married? Would she think my personal, social and moral values very different from hers? Would we spar or would she accept me now that I’m much older for who I am. Questions I wish she were alive to answer.